Sony HDR AS50R Action Cam Review

Grab Action Cam and strap on Live-View Remote. More than merely wristwear, this compact new remote controller also doubles as a mountable control for handy use with many optional accessories including Shooting Grip. You’re ready for any adventure.

Smart Remote Pairs with Friendly UI

Get tighter teamwork between Action Cam and LiveView Remote via identical user interfaces. And, take full control to turn the camera on/off to save battery power. The camera can also be turned on/off via smartphone with PlayMemories Mobile.

Get Star Performance Using Super Features

Count on SteadyShot™ for stable movies, shoot in the dark with low-light sensitivity, change area coverage with a new adjustable field of view, and get peerless high performance with the trio of Exmor R™ sensor, BIONZ X™ chip, and ZEISS® lens.

SteadyShot Stabilizes POV Movies

SteadyShot suppresses tiny vibrations caused by bike riding and other activities. Now you can take action to more steady POV movie, so your fans can relax and really enjoy the show.

Shoot From Dawn to Dusk and in Dim Spaces

No more worries about shooting in the dark. It’s possible for you to rely on Exmor R® CMOS detector for stunning videos outdoors from sunup to sundown and even capture natural ambiance indoors.

Exmor R® CMOS sensor

Shoot in the dark with incident light, using this cutting-edge detector.

BIONZ X image processor

Record swift moves and smooth action up to 50 Mbps3/Full HD.

ZEISS ® Tessar™ lens

Capture landscapes and aerial shots with panoramic viewing angles.

Adjustable Field of View and Zoom Freedom

Select “Wide” or “Narrow” angle for your field of view, and adjust settings via zoom during shooting. Bring star quality to spectacular footage of athletes and moviemakers.

Sony HDR-AS50R Will Give You The Best Shots

Sony has updated its hugely popular action camera series with the HDR-AS50 and HDR-AS50R – the latter coming with a brand new Live View Remote you can wear on your wrist in order to see what you’re recording.

There are several new features and enhancements, although the camera itself is as tiddly as last year’s model.

For starters, there is Advanced SteadyShot technology on board to help create a smoother video with less blur. An 11.1-megapixel back-illuminated CMOS sensor captures images for Full HD video, which can also be shot at up to 120 frames per second. It can also shoot stills at 8-megapixels, and 4K time lapse videos can be created from stills in camera, although video resolutions max out at 1080p. There is a fresh Zeiss Tessar lens is included for even sharper pictures. It has a 3x smooth zoom manner. And a redesigned body and menu system help guide users through features more easily.

The camera now has a tripod socket, rather than need a separate adapter before. A mighty collection of accessories will be available for both the HDR-AS50 HDR-AS50R and, including the Underwater Housing, which enables the camera to be submerged down to a depth of 60 meters. It is going to be available in Europe from February and although a UK price is yet to be revealed, it is understood to cost $350 in the States.

Why Select Sony HDR-AS50R

They’re amazingly easy to use, create great video color and have readily swappable batteries to keep the filming on track no matter how many takes you need. That, and the Live View wrist -mounted remote is amazing, helping ensure the angle is right and easily start/stop the camera regardless of where it’s mounted. And now, they’ve made it even better.

While bumping the feature set darn close to it the new AS50 looks to replace the entry level AS20 but keeps the $200 price point ’s the highest end X1000V 4K version. The AS50 gets 4K stills a 4K recording and SteadyShot image stabilization. It also gets adds an 11.1 megapixel back-lit CMOS sensor, which should drastically improve the low light capture and complete fine detail. To get closer to the activity, there’s a new 3x Smooth Zoom and field of view angle adjustment, swapping between the standard wide angle and also a brand new narrow view.

Controlling all of it are new, more intuitive buttons and an improved wrist remote, too.

The $200 AS50’s technical attributes almost match the $500 X1000V’s features step for step, with GPS and 240fps shooting being the only big things missing. But it makes up for it with a few bonuses of its own. Shared are the BIONZ image processor, Zeiss lens and EXMOR image sensor, which gets the same 6 lux / F2.8 specs but actually increases pixels from 8.8 to 11.1 over their top model. It even has the auto/custom white balance adjustments for pro users.

The form factor of the camera is familiar, but the included waterproof housing gets a new, flat viewport over the lens and different power /record buttons…a nice change when compared with the single button on the higher end models. Sony says feedback from casual users told many of the changes, and this is a good one. It adds additional “tally” lights on the front, top, and rear to indicate when it’s recording.

The waterproof casing is their advanced case, capable of diving to 60m (197ft), a substantially better depth than the 10m water-resistant case that comes with the other versions.

Other features include WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0, allowing control and review/editing on your smartphone and syncing with the Live View Remote2. It records up to 4K at 50 MBps using Sony’s XAVC S codec, so long as you have a high-speed Class 10 Micro SDHC/SDXC card on hand. Like the X1000V, you’ll need to choose between using Steady Shot with regular 1080 p HD or the full res 4K capture.

For $350, you get the AS50 and this new Live View Remote2. It’s only sold as a bundle, for now, not sold separately.